Pittsburgh Penguins Fan Sues Team Over ‘Excessive Text Alerts’

This doesn’t sound like sportsmanlike behavior to us. A fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins is suing the NHL team’s owners, claiming that they are texting him too much.

According to The Consumerist, said fan signed up for team text alerts, but now claims that the franchise is violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending more texts than the agreed upon amount listed in the fine print. Whoa, someone read the fine print?

When the plaintiff signed up to receive the texts, which offer instant updates on trades, general news, stats, scores and more, the terms and conditions stated that a maximum of three text per week would be sent. Well, Mr. Fan received at least five texts the first week. The second week, four texts hit his inbox. Not excessive, but over the legal and posted limit.

What caused him to file suit, according to the complaint, was not only the “aggravation that necessarily accompanies the invasion of privacy caused by unsolicited text message calls” but the fact that “consumers frequently have to pay their cell phone service providers for the receipt of such wireless calls.”

Put simply, the fan didn’t want to be charged to receive extra texts. In other words, this guy can read the fine print on contracts but not the massive print option that reads UNLIMITED DATA when purchasing a cell phone plan.

The case is currently in the California court system. According to Courthouse News (where you can view the thrilling doc), the suit seeks class-action status, an injunction against texting more than three times a week and unspecified damages.

Texts to the man about the case were not returned. We’ll try three more times.